July 19, 2010
A top Missouri education official is promoting federal legislation that offers additional money for teachers and could save the jobs of about 3,200 educators in the state. Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro said she supports legislation being considered by Congress that would offer $10 billion in grants to school districts to avoid teacher layoffs. The bill […]
July 19, 2010
The Davenport Community School Distr ict may fight a state practice of giving some school districts more per student in aid than the others, leaders say. About half of Iowa school districts for the 2010-11 fiscal year will receive $5,883 per student, according to the Iowa Department of Education. That is the amount Davenport and […]
July 19, 2010
Supporters of early childhood education worry about the impact of cuts Gov. Pat Quinn has announced to education. Though preschool and early learning programs are supposed to receive the same $342 million they did last year, many of them haven’t yet been paid for last year and had to dip into reserves to keep going. […]
July 19, 2010
Parents and teachers again spilled into the hallway and outside the Coachella Valley Unified School District’s cramped boardroom, this time protesting the possible elimination of preschool. After hearing an hour of testimony Thursday night from parents and teachers supporting the educational and social opportunities of state preschool and child care, the board voted voted 4-2 […]
July 19, 2010
The school finance crisis in Kansas continues with no end in sight, and attempts to fix it have been temporary at best. State Board of Education members last week recommended a $471 million increase to public schools. That would amount to a 15 percent increase over current spending, and would “fund the law” that Kansas […]
July 19, 2010
For the first time in more than 15 years, Rhode Island has a statewide school funding formula that supporters say will more equitably dole out money to its public schools, though the new system has hardly settled the debate over how best to divvy up state aid for public education. The formula, approved by Rhode […]
July 19, 2010
Richard Thomas has eliminated his land-line phone and cut his cable television and uses his air conditioning sparingly. When he shops he searches for sale items, and despite 142,000 miles on the odometer, he’s sticking with his 2003 Dodge Dakota. Thomas, a single father of two, teaches science at Gray Station Middle School in Jones […]
July 16, 2010
A handful of Delaware’s persistently low-achieving schools made great gains in this year’s state assessment scores, but students statewide struggled in reading, continuing a downward trend in that subject area. Delaware Department of Education officials said the decline in reading scores was caused in part by a change in the way some students were given […]
July 16, 2010
Attention state education agencies: Don’t send those Gates-financed consultants home just yet. It’s still early in the congressional budget process, but it looks like the Obama administration’s signature K-12 initiative—the $4.35 billion Race to the Top program—has a better chance of being extended into fiscal year 2011, which begins Oct. 1. The bill financing the […]
July 16, 2010
As school districts prepare their budgets for the upcoming year, which may be plagued with more cuts from the state, some administrators are looking at alternatives to making more cuts — finding ways to make money. This year, school districts around the state were cut about 4.5 percent in their general funds, which pays mostly […]